The Future of Steam Wagon Design.
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IN A LEADING article in our issue of May 15th we drew attention to the question of the controls on steam wagons. A discussion upon this matter would now be opportune, in view of the present efforts (long overdue) to bring the steam wagon up to date.
We know a designer who met with considerable opposition, some years ago, when insisting upon the steering wheel being placed on the opposite aide of a well-known make of wagon, so that one man could steer as well as control the engine. The maker's contention was that the steam wagon driver preferred a mate to steer, so that he could attend to the boiler himself.
The most difficult problem of one-man control for steam. wagons is, undoubtedly, the attention required by the boiler. When, in addition to steering and controlling the engine, a man has to watch a pressure gauge, a water level gauge, and a Aye, has to operate a feed-pump return cock, and an injector, and also stoke a fire and manipulate a damper he is at a great disadvantage. New that the majority of steam wagons are fitted with rubber tyres, and may legally travel up t4:;' 12 miles per hour, the question of providing automatic water and fuel control should most certainly be given more consideration.
Very little notice seems to have been taken, in this country, of the very simple and effective system used on the Purrey-Exshaw steam wagon. The water service to the boiler was looked after by duplicate steam ' pumps, which were started and stopped by the action of a float in the boiler drum, and the arrangenaent was found to work so well that many wagons were built on which no water gauge was fitted. The fuel was carried in a hopper, situated alongside the boiler, and worked down on to a sloping fire-grate by the vibration when running. It was claimed that the fuel fed automatically in a very satisfactory way, and that no attention was demanded from the driver.
The arrangement of water control on the Clarkson steamer is also well worth study, although the fuel supply on this wagon is now apparently by hand, -through the central stoking shoot of the thimble tube boiler.
Without resorting to such complications as thermostats, or electric controls, it should be possible to produce a steam wagon with the fuel and water supplies so controlled that no attention is required from the driver, other than, say, an occasional look at the fire and adjustment of the fuel supply. Whilst dealing with this matter, it may not be-out of place to touch upon the question of most suitable fuel. It is practically axiomatic that oil fuel is of no use to steam wagons, on account of cost, and especially as the heavy oil engine is now being applied to motor vehicles. The fuel must be either coal or coke. If it is coal, this can be used either in lumps or pulverized to a powder and consumed in a manner similar to liquid fuel. Coke can only be burned in lumps, as it cOntains no volatile matter and would not ignite as a powder.
It is most probable that a different type of boiler from those at present in use will be required for automatic stoking, for neither the loco. type nor the vertical type lends itself to a satisfactory arrangement. The Purrey-Exshaw boiler was of the watertube type, and possibly this type will eventually salve the problem.
New Taxicab Regulations being Framed.
THE DAYS of the decrepit taxicab are rabidly drawing short, although there is this to be said of the London cab that it is a great deal :better than some of the vehicles which ply for hire in the provineeS and in foreign cities. Paris, for a long time, has had a number of bad specimens on -its Streets. London's vehicles are, on the whole, very good, those which fail toup to the general standard of excellence beng aged and as a rule two-cylindered. • And, without a doubt, a worn two-cylindered engine sadly displays . its condition when it has to tackle a gradient even with a light load.
The police are understood to be framing new regu.iations which will establish anew standard of efficiency for all London cabs, more engine power, better hill-climbing capabilities, ample brake power, and.lese noise being called for. The regulations will come into force, so we are informed, on September 10th, and owners of vehicles which are unlikely to be found capable of compliance with them have, we hope, duly covered the factor of depreciation out of earnings. If not, they will have been extremely foolish, because it was obvious that with the coming of the type of cab which has been placed upon the streets since the .war, the day could not be far distant when the wornout cab would be refused a renewal of its licence to • ply for hire. There are 7,500 cabs running in London, and it is estimated that there are between 1,000 and 1,500 of the two-cylinder type, many of which will, of course, pass the tests and obtain the coveted renewal.
London's Lost Transport Mileage.
AS SHOWING how easily vehicular traffic in London can be dislocated by the ground fogs from. which the Metropolis suffers at certain seasons of the year, Sir Henry P. Maybury, the Director-General of Roads, draws attention to the fact that in November, 1921, a dense fog that prevailed over practically the whale of the London district resulted in the inability of buses to complete the scheduled mileage, the number of lost miles on three days being 141,564.
On a day in February in the same year a general fog developed into a dense fog at 6 p.m., a wide area being covered. With the uncompleted journeys and the vehicles taken off service, there was a total lost mileage of no less than 39,000, being 16 per cent, of the scheduled mileage for the day. Some weeks ago there was a bad spell of fog, and it WM no uncommon thing for a bus to have covered only two double journeys by the end of the day and to have stood up for three or four hours. All this means a serious Toss to traffic undertakings and to the passengers whose time is thus being aimlessly frittered away, whose apwaintmente are inter-, fered with and business interrupted. How the evil will eventually be countered and fogs entirely prevented it is not for us to speculates A more complete knowledge of atmospheric conditions and the causes of fogs and of the economical use of electric currents in the dispersal of fog will undoubtedly help, but'what must materially help the situation will be greater effort to quell the emission of smoke. Many a ground fog would be penetrable and permit the circulation of traffic were it not for the added pall of smoke, which serves to render the fog dense, and a great dead could be done, not only in London, 'but in all of the great centres, to secure an abatement of what is, at the least, an undoubted nuisance and waste of material, and, in general effect, is a source of very great loss and annoyance and of injury to health to the community at large.
The Use of Automobile Power in Municipal Work.
THERE HAS BEEN no more rapid development of the use of automotive power than in connection with certain phases of municipal work. A municipal official, working under a committee of men representative of an electorate must naturally be in a position which renders it desirable that a device or method should be proved by private enterprise before its adoption in the service of the municipality can be recommended. Thus, although the county and municipal engineers were by no means out of touch with the development of the motor vehicle, it took longer to displace the horse in municipal service than in the ranks of industry. But the horse has only a very small sphere of muni cipal work now open to it. House-to-house collection of refuse in the very poorest neighbourhoods (where from the sheer nature of the tenements collection is unusually slow) can be economically handled by electric vehicles, and where the municipality is the owner of a generating station the use of electric vehicles could not be improved upon, as the charging of batteries can be carried on during the hours or small load.
Great advances have been made since the war in street sweeping, cleansing, and watering, and in gully emptying, and, by the employment of the most modern productions of the motor vehicle engineers, really astonishing economies are being effected.
There have been gratifying developments in firefighting appliances, and, in the combination of attributes which render a vehicle useful for material transport, street watering, and fire-fighting, the'so developments have even been astonishing. They are, we have been told, but perhaps not seriously, encouraging the municipal engineer to ask for multipurpose machines that will do everything required by all the .departments of a local authority!
The use of automotive power in road construction and reconstruction has had beneficial effects. The' breaking up of existing foundations, the removal of the old materials, the steady supply of new materials and their actual mixing on the scene of operations is all aided by automotive power, which, too, is en couraging the use of reinforced concrete for road foundations. We intend in our next issue to deal fully with this use of power in municipal work, and suggest that all municipal and county engineers, cleansing superintendents, traffic managers, and fire brigade officials should make a point of ordering a copy of the issue in advance.